I want to use some pineapple in a Wheat Pale Ale and would like some feed back. My plan is to use some during a 60 minute boil, I figured I would put it in around the 30 minute mark. I also was going to chop the rest up and let it sit in vodka for a week then add just the pineapple (unless the vodka wouldn't hurt) to the secondary for the last 7 days. What do y'all think? Thank you for the help! Steve D.
I think I would use dried not fresh and in the last 15 minutes for aroma -no vodka especially not a week. I tried adding some to a hefeweizen and it fermented completely and was too dry.
The reason it would be fresh is because I'm making this for someone and using their homegrown pineapples.
Is there a way for to juice the pineapple, then add the juice to the fermentor once the bulk of fermentation is over. I think it would allow the delicate flavor to be retained better. If you boil the pineapple you might cook off some or all the flavor.
What if you put the pineapple in a juicer or a press to extract the juices and add said juice to your fermenter? Personally, I'd add it to both primary and secondary but that's just because I love pineapple flavored things. Also, I've been wanting to brew a pineapple/raspberry IPA for a while so I'm curious to see how this turns out.
I had thought along the same line as this, but I was going to suggest using the remaining pulp in the beer instead of the juice. Maybe there would be less sugar? Just a guess.
Any fruit addition at 30" will only contribute sugars to the wort. Little if any aroma. Little if any flavor. Just sugar. Fruit additions into alcoholic liquids with low pH generally don't need vodka treatments; altho...it doesn't hurt and better safe than sorry. No reason not to pitch the vodka unless you want to limit the final ABV.
Obviously it's already been stated that adding the juice is your best bet. Let us know how it turns out!
